


Visiting Hours

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-11
Updated: 2009-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7994227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim goes to visit Pike while he's in hospital. (Set in the aftermath of <i>Star Trek XI</i>, the first reboot movie.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visiting Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a prompt at the ST_XI_kink meme and posted to my LJ. Imported to AO3 in August 2016.
> 
> I don't even _like_ this pairing normally, but I saw the prompt and thought, "I can do that!" So I did. It was actually fun. Thanks to Ice_Elf for the beta!

Jim was there when they brought Pike out of the induced coma. Not in the room, because he wasn’t family and apparently saving a man’s life didn’t grant full access to their bedside, but just outside the door. As close as he could be: leaning up against the wall and straining his ears to hear what was going on inside.

They told him he could go in an hour later, once they were satisfied that Pike still had all his faculties and wasn’t in any pain, and actually wanted a visit. Jim took a deep breath and pushed open the door, poking his head inside.

Pike was lying on the hospital biobed just as he had been for the previous week, still pale but no longer unconscious. He was sitting up, propped up against a bank of pillows, and when he spotted Jim he smiled. “Hey, kid. They tell me you’ve been here every day.”

His voice was rough from lack of use, but he sounded strong and well – or as well as a man in his position could expect to be. Jim grinned at him and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “Yeah, well. Had to make sure you were going to be OK, after all the trouble we went to getting you back.”

Any excuse, really – even one that was half a joke – to explain away his presence at Pike’s bedside. He was still justifying it to himself, and ignoring the way his stomach flipped whenever he thought about the other man. He had been ignoring that for the past three years; it was an easy habit to keep up. He was pretty sure that Pike saw right through his excuse, though; there was a twinkle in his eye that suggested he knew more than he was letting on. Still, he said nothing, just laughed softly at the joke and gestured towards the chair beside his bed.

Jim knew it wasn’t particularly comfortable, but he took a seat anyway. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Pike replied, dismissing his condition with a wave of his hand and quickly changing the subject. “How’s Starfleet treating you?”

“I don’t think they know what to do with me,” Jim told him, smiling sheepishly. “I mean, I broke a hell of a lot of rules, I’ll admit that. But I also saved the planet, so …”

Pike chuckled. “I can see why that’s causing problems for them.”

“Yeah,” Jim said with a small smile. They lapsed into silence, and Jim took the opportunity to look Pike over a little more closely. He did look better, but there were more lines on his face now and he was still rigged up to an almost disturbing array of medical equipment. Now that the room was quiet, the soft whirr and beep of the machines seemed much louder. Jim felt his throat constrict. Pike reached across and laid a hand on Jim’s shoulder.

Jim jerked, surprised and ashamed to be caught staring, and looked away. He cleared his throat loudly. “Sorry.”

Pike ignored his apology and squeezed his shoulder. “I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for coming to get me.”

Jim turned to face him again, offering a small smile. “You don’t need to thank me.”

“Not many people would’ve done what you did,” Pike continued, as if he had said nothing. His hand moved from Jim’s shoulder to the back of his neck. His palm was warm and his grip firm, the touch reassuring. Jim swallowed hard and tried to ignore the butterflies that appeared suddenly in his stomach. “Most would’ve assumed I was long gone.”

“Not you, sir,” Jim replied with a shrug and a small smile, giving in to a little small-scale hero-worship – something he would never admit to. Pike squeezed his neck and he had to repress a shiver. “Bunch of Romulans couldn’t beat you.”

“They damn near did, Jim,” Pike reminded him softly. All of a sudden, he looked as if he felt his age. Jim didn’t actually know what that age might be – it had never seemed important before – but he thought he was probably younger than his mother by a few years. He might be old enough to retire from active service, Jim realised with a nasty clench of his stomach. Up until now, he hadn’t thought that a looming possibility; but considering what he had been through on the _Narada_ it seemed likely that he would, now.

“But they didn’t,” he said quietly. On the _Enterprise_ , Pike not surviving had never been a possibility – not really. In Jim’s mind, he was almost invincible.

When he arrived at the academy, Pike had become a sort of inspiration. He held the record for the youngest captaincy in Starfleet – a record Jim still intended to beat – and his career history was impressive enough that most cadets aspired to match it; beside that he was one of the most well-liked officers at the academy. More than all those things, however, Jim knew him to be a good man.

There had been a severe shortage of living, breathing role models in Jim’s life. The only man worthy of his respect before Starfleet had been his father. It would be unfair if the world was capable of taking Pike from him, as well.

It was totally illogical. Jim knew that admitting any of it would gain him nothing but funny looks. Spock would probably refuse to speak to him ever again, on the grounds that his irrational thought-processes might be catching – or because he was a raving lunatic. He probably was, by Vulcan standards if not by human ones.

“Jim,” Pike said softly, jerking him out of his thoughts with another firm squeeze to his neck. He stroked his thumb across the base of Jim’s skull in a long, slow sweep; Jim closed his eyes and tried not to think of how strong and capable Pike’s hands were, how good they would feel elsewhere on his body. “Get over here.”

Jim opened his eyes again and looked up at Pike in surprise. He withdrew his hand and for a moment Jim thought he had imagined it. Then he patted the edge of the bed and offered a small smile.

For a moment, Jim’s brain froze; then he decided that thinking was highly overrated and shifted from the chair to the bed. Pike’s hand landed on his thigh – it took every ounce of will Jim had not to jump – indicating that apparently, he had made the right call.

Already he could feel his body reacting, electric currents running down to every nerve and setting them on fire at Pike’s touch. He leant across, steadying himself with an arm on the other side of Pike’s chest. “You know, they’re going to throw me out if they catch me on here with you. They don’t like people sitting on the biobeds.”

“Better stop acting like the shy kid at the prom, then, hadn’t you,” Pike suggested, and it had the air of an order about it. He was still smiling, and a familiar challenging gleam had appeared in his eyes – the same gleam Jim remembered from the night they first met.

Well, he had taken up Pike’s dare last time and that had worked out pretty well for him, so he leaned in closer. Pike’s hand curled around the back of his neck, reassuring and encouraging, and that was the only signal Jim needed to know that they were on the same page. He closed the gap between them. The first kiss was short; Jim pulled back almost immediately to look for approval, but he was barely an inch from Pike’s lips when the other man pulled him back for another.

When they finally parted, both breathing heavily, Jim smiled. “So, do I get to call you Chris now?”

Pike chuckled. “I guess so. It’d be kind of weird, you calling me ‘Captain’ or ‘Sir’.”

“Exactly,” Jim replied with a grin. “Chris.”

He was about to lean in for another kiss, since he was allowed to indulge that particular desire now, when they heard the door open. Jim jumped to his feet, not wanting to be caught on the bed and kicked out, and turned to face the nurse. She was giving him a suspicious sort of glare that suggested that he had been caught, but she didn’t mention it.

“Captain Pike needs his rest now, young man,” she said briskly and firmly. “You can come back tomorrow, during visiting hours.”

She continued to stare for a moment before she left again to give them some privacy, or maybe to get someone who could physically throw Jim out. He sighed deeply. “I’d better do as I’m told.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Pike replied, obviously teasing; Jim gave him a reproachful look, and Pike reached out for his hand to pull him closer. He leant over the bed, bracing his hands on either side of Pike’s chest, and let himself be pulled into a final, deep kiss.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he murmured against Pike’s lips when he pulled back.

“I’ll be waiting,” Pike smiled. His hand was cupping Jim’s jaw and as he spoke he dragged his thumb along his cheekbone. Jim tilted his head so that he could press another kiss to Pike’s palm, all the while maintaining eye-contact, and wondered how long the other man had been waiting for this. He straightened up, thinking maybe he would ask tomorrow in between more kisses, and flashed Pike a grin before he turned to go.


End file.
